GSAC Memo from Peter Conn

December 11, 2002

Dear Graduate Students:

I have been asked by GAPSA and GSAC, the organizers of this event, to submit a statement describing Penn’s role in the graduate student representation and election proceedings currently pending before the National Labor Relations Board. GET-UP filed its representation petition, and triggered this process, in December, 2001. The NLRB conducted a representation hearing from the middle of January through the middle of March of this year. Penn and GET-UP subsequently filed their briefs in the middle of April, and on November 21, the NLRB issued a decision directing an election and defining a bargaining unit. Because the University leadership believes the conclusions reached by the regional NLRB director are unreasonable, unnecessarily divisive and ultimately not in the best interests of graduate education, Penn filed an appeal of the NLRB’s decision. That appeal will not delay voting by the currently eligible graduate students. We anticipate that the election will be held over the course of one or two days at the end of February.

Penn plays three critical roles in this process: providing information to the NLRB to allow application of legal standards based on relevant facts; providing information to students to allow informed decision making about unionization; and encouraging open debate and deliberation of the merits of graduate student unionization at Penn.

First, Penn has provided and will continue to provide information to the NLRB to try to ensure that the quality of the graduate programs it offers are in no way compromised by the NLRB proceedings. The administration believes that by classifying graduate students as employees the collegial and mentoring relationship between students and faculty will be transformed into a more adversarial, inflexible and ultimately less vibrant relationship. The administration also believes that the arbitrary and divisive segmenting of the graduate student community by the NLRB in its definition of the bargaining unit will diminish the graduate experience of all graduate students at Penn.

Second, Penn provides information to the graduate student community on the impact of unionization with respect to taxes, stipends and health insurance, among other matters. For example, it’s an important fact that the tax status of graduate students will change if they receive compensation as employees under a union contract. Penn graduate students need only ask the unionized graduate students at Temple to find that they are paying full Pennsylvania income and city wage taxes as union employees. Similarly, during the pendency of GET-UP’s petition, and during collective bargaining if the union is voted in, Penn may not freely increase stipends. At this point, stipends may only be increased for competitive reasons – that is, to attract graduate students to Penn. As a result, many of our graduate groups anticipate announcing increased stipends for next year in order to attract a new incoming class.

The administration also believes that it is helpful for graduate students to know that if they unionize, and the union negotiates for health insurance benefits, they will no longer be eligible to participate in the Penn Student Health Insurance Plan. As employees, federal law would require graduate students to participate in a plan covered by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA, which the student plan is not.

Perhaps Penn’s most important role in this process is to ensure that there is an open and free exchange of information and ideas on this important issue, which could significantly alter the life of every graduate student, undergraduate and faculty member at Penn. The administration hopes that there will be a substantive debate in the new year, in which all graduate students, whatever their views on this question, will take part.

Thank you for giving us this opportunity to share our perspective. We look forward to a full and healthy debate in the spring semester.

Sincerely,

Peter Conn
Deputy Provost